The bug has bitten me again. Recently I went out to the observatory, dusted things off, lubed the wheels to the roof, and generally made things ready for usage. I also updated the computer I use for image capture.
On the evening of November 1st I got a break in the weather and a chance to see if the system still worked. I decided to have a go at collecting some Ha data for NGC 6960, the Witches Broom, or the Western Veil. It isn't my best data ever but the system did work with the exception of a USB cable to my focuser that needed to be replaced.
On the evening of November 1st I got a break in the weather and a chance to see if the system still worked. I decided to have a go at collecting some Ha data for NGC 6960, the Witches Broom, or the Western Veil. It isn't my best data ever but the system did work with the exception of a USB cable to my focuser that needed to be replaced.
On November 22 and 24 I got more good weather. This time I collected Ha, SII, and OIII data on some of the detail in the Heart Nebula, IC 1805. In particular I got the area surrounding the open cluster, Melotte 15.
After the Heart Nebula, I was feeling pretty good about the Hubble Palette so I decided to try NGC 1491 on the night of November 27th. I call this Nebula the Burning Man. While I collected Ha, SII, and OIII data, I have found SII signal too weak to do much with it. I need to decide what direction I want to take with this. Here is a quick pass at the Ha data.
In the meantime, I got some good weather for at least part of the night again on December 5th and 7th. The Moon was a factor so I decided to go after one of the Messier objects that I still had not image, Messier 76, the Little Dumbbell. While visually dim, from an imaging point of view it is a bright object with good surface brightness.
In the full-size uncropped version of M76 there are at least 6 galaxies captured going down to at least 18th magnitude. Not bad since the Moon was definitely a factor.
Throughout this, I have been upgrading the software that I use. I now have upgraded, PHD2, TheSkyX Pro, SGP, and PixInsight.
I also upgraded to Nebulosity 4 since it can be used as an ASCOM driver. I wanted to give N.I.N.A. a try and it has no native SBIG drivers. Unfortunately, that experiment failed for a number of reasons. I do really like the integrated object browser within N.I.N.A. It is a nice piece of software for free. It still lacks features found in the paid alternatives, that may be important to you, but the price is right if you don't need those features.
I also upgraded to Nebulosity 4 since it can be used as an ASCOM driver. I wanted to give N.I.N.A. a try and it has no native SBIG drivers. Unfortunately, that experiment failed for a number of reasons. I do really like the integrated object browser within N.I.N.A. It is a nice piece of software for free. It still lacks features found in the paid alternatives, that may be important to you, but the price is right if you don't need those features.